The Cascade Hotel

The Hughes family has one hope left to recover their finances, the creepy old Cascade Hotel. In trying to help her father, downtrodden ice princess Virginia Hughes volunteers to handle night watch duty beside the inscrutable Steve Carter. Instantly making him the focus of her anger, she also makes him her anchor amidst personal chaos. More

Virginia Hughes, the ice princess of Cascade High, had defined herself with money, prestige and power. With her father’s fortunes collapsing as rapidly as his marriage, and her life crumbling, Virginia had managed to maintain exactly one friend and almost nothing else. Now, with her father squeezed on every side and hanging onto his last property for dear life, Virginia decided to jump into the fray to help him. And jumping in blindly with both feet, she landed squarely on the night watch with Steve Carter, a barely-anything entity in her estimation. Rapidly becoming the target of all her anger, Carter’s stoic personality becomes the only anchor left in her unwinding world, where the creepy old Cascade Hotel represents her family’s only hope. But whether she can survive long enough to even embrace that hope is the real question.

I am a computer programmer by trade, and own a business that absorbs between 200 and 300 hours a month; I have a wife and young daughter, and for two days a week to I get to be Mister Mum. Those are the best two days of my week, and being Mister Mum is about the only thing I need to be good at any more. I am further blessed in that working for myself, I can be available for my daughter the other five days when required.

I also have five cats, all of them demanding attention whenever the mood strikes them, which is expressed with a vengeful disregard for me that only a cat could express while still retaining its sense of dignity – all other creatures would be deeply ashamed of themselves. Oh, how I wish I were a cat. (The three dogs are much kinder to me, but also rather demanding.

Though I write obsessively, life being what it is, I haven’t enough time to dedicate to making the stories letter-perfect. Editorial work falls by the wayside too often, and what I end up with are, at best, rough gems. The first book I posted here was priced as an experiment, and will be free if I can ever proof it again, since my gut feel is that eBooks will never be an economic force in my lifetime, at least for writers. All other books will be free, because it is the only way I can forgive the inability to proof them as they deserve. It reduces the sting of knowing there are some errors in them; and it recognizes that, realistically, few people will actually pay for any product if they can get a similar substitute for free. I have no illusions about my talents as a writer, and know that while I am better than some, I am never going to be the best -- that honour will befall someone new every few hours.

I appreciate hearing from readers who have the ability to be ruthless as required, and kind as inspired. Anyone who wants to, can contact me via twitter or my blog or email (frank.buchan@gmail.com, and make the subject line include the word Smashwords so it doesn't get tossed to spam). If you wish a personal reply, combine an email address with some patience and I will do my best. I do ask for polite communications, though. If you're so angry you need to swear at someone, or belittle someone, feel free to direct that toward the actual cause of your grief – my time is too short to expend it fighting pointless battles with strangers and those types of communications end up in my junk mail where they belong. That I even have to write that reminds me how unpleasant contacts made via the Internet can be.

Some day, perhaps, I will win a lottery and have the resources to seek editorial perfection in my work; but until then I will still publish what I can, because it is a compulsion that cannot be denied.

Also in Cascade Falls

Also by This Author

Reviews

Review by:
NIHARIKA BAKHSHI
on Feb. 09, 2013 :
i was about to skip it due to the cover but now am glad i didn't.(review of free book)

Review by:
holy angel
on Jan. 30, 2013 :
i m lovin' it . just read few pages and m LOL..conversation between Virginia and Steve is aw sum..if i all it conversation..

She snapped, “Carter, are you just blind or what?”
“Blind?”
“That green shirt is one of the most horrible greens I’ve ever seen. Why do you wear so many greens? And
why are all the greens ugly greens? Do you have any taste?”
He considered telling her that it wasn’t his fault her mother was a drunken lout and had stolen the family car,
but his kindness won out. He said instead, “I thought it was blue,” which was also the truth.
“How could you think that was blue? It’s lime green.”
“I thought it was light blue.”
“Are you colour blind or something?”
“Yes.”(review of free book)

Review by:
hrhsophia
on Jan. 29, 2013 :
I usually do not enjoy novels with young adults as the main characters but this was very well written and very intense. Please continue to tell this and other stories.(review of free book)

Review by:
claus olsen
on Jan. 28, 2013 :
Incredibly well written novel. Great characters. I loved the nice Stephen, his mom Ann, and even the bitchy Virginia started to grow on you in the end. Look forward to read the sequel, (hope there will be one!) and to learn how Stephen an Virginia will handle life after this novel's crescendo of an ending.(review of free book)